A coalition of pro-life organizations spoke out in support of women faced with unexpected pregnancy, telling these women, “We are here for you,” and committing to ensure they have the assistance they need.
With the prospect on the horizon for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, Students for Life of America (SFLA) co-hosted a Valentine’s Day press conference with Heritage Action “to push back on the narrative that pro-lifers only care about babies in the womb and to highlight new StandingWithYou.org services and features.”
SFLA’s StandingWithYou.org compiles nationwide resources for free abortion alternatives, making them available to women locally in their area. The group said this is part of a strategic plan to prepare for a post-Roe America.
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Pro-life groups are closely watching for the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, widely thought to be the first formidable threat to Roe v. Wade, the decision for which is expected in June.
Communications and Marketing Andrea Trudden
Heartbeat International is among the pro-life groups taking part in the initiative and Heartbeat’s Vice President of Communications and Marketing was present for the SFLA Valentine’s Day press event. Heartbeat is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the world.
“We know the impact that even a little bit of help can provide a woman,” Andrea Trudden said. “A listening ear, a free pregnancy test, an ultrasound, a home in some cases.”
As pro-life advocates plan for the possible overturning or gutting of Roe, pregnancy help advocates point to the fact that they have already been serving women and will continue to do so.
“The resources and support gained at a local pregnancy help organization is far better for women than anything else in your community,” Trudden said. “Working with partners like Students for Life and their Standing With You program helps young mothers achieve their dreams and not fall into the lies from big abortion.”
Standing With You press conference
“Every day, the pro-life community proves that we are here for women and their children, born and preborn, no matter how many times we’re accused of not caring,” said SFLA’s President Kristan Hawkins. “But as we get closer to a post-Roe America, we’re taking our message straight to women across the country so that they know we are standing with them so that they never have to stand alone.”
SFLA’s Standing With You program has been in existence for 10 years and relaunched with augmented technologic capabilities to best bring together free, local, nonviolent resources available to women nationwide.
The resources include healthcare, food assistance, housing, childcare, information about pregnant and parenting rights, whether on campus or in the workplace, and more.
In addition to Trudden, Hawkins was joined at the press conference by Patrina Mosley, public policy expert on life; Toni McFadden, pro-life activist and speaker; Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America; Christina Bennett, Live Action News correspondent, Janae Stracke, director of Grassroots for Heritage Action for America; Ruth Asmarzadeh, Standing With You alumni and mother, studying for a psychology degree; Kelly Dierberger, Mrs. Fredericksburg, running for Mrs. Virginia/Mrs. America; Emilie Kao, senior counsel and vice president of Advocacy Strategy with ADF; Cherie Short, former deputy assistant secretary of DHS’s Intergovernmental Affairs; and Kristi Hamrick, chief Media & Policy strategist with SFLA.
“On Valentine’s Day, we want women to know that they and their children – born and preborn – are loved,” Hawkins said.
“A predatory abortion industry making billions through ending young lives tells women that they are alone in the world and incapable of succeeding at home and at work,” she said. “They sell women short, and then they sell them an abortion, creating real fear in women. We want women to know that we are already working to help them, and that no woman needs to stand alone.”
Trudden said, “We live in a world right now where there’s so much negativity coming at you from all angles. Specifically, if you are a woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. She hears it from her boyfriend, her parents, and her friends.”
“You can’t be pregnant and go to school, have a career, or insert other lie here,” said Trudden. “But we know the truth! We know that women are much stronger than the abortion lobby gives us credit for! We can overcome trials and do so every day!”
McFadden, who had offered her post-abortive account at the 2022 March for Life, shared her story for the SFLA Standing With You event.
“I know firsthand that the abortion industry does not care about women,” she said.
If the Standing With You initiative had been around for her, she said, she might not have thought abortion was her only choice.
McFadden was a senior in high school when she faced an unplanned pregnancy.
“When I walked through the door of that death facility, I believed the lie that abortion was my only option,” she said.
Both her boyfriend and her best friend pushed her to abort, and she didn’t want her parents to find out she was pregnant. She thought if she went through with the abortion her life would go along as planned, but that is not what happened.
The nurse at the abortion facility became agitated when McFadden asked to see her sonogram, the nurse telling her, “It's nothing. It's just the size of a pea.”
Seven weeks along, McFadden was given the abortion pill, and told to take the first set of pills in the facility and then take the second set 24 to 48 hours later “alone.”
“Those chemical abortion pills never worked,” she said. “I ended up experiencing severe hemorrhaging almost two months later while I was in school.” 
“Empowering women. That's what it looks like for Planned Parenthood,” McFadden said. “I will tell you, there is nothing empowering about taking the life of your own. It changes you. No matter how much they try to normalize abortion, it will never be normal because it strips away from the woman what is natural.”
Trudden said that with the rise of chemical abortion, in particular the push for more abortion pills to be dispensed on college campuses and through the mail, it is more important than ever that women have all the information to make an informed decision for all of the options available to them, including Abortion Pill Reversal.
Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) is the updated application of a treatment used for decades to prevent miscarriage that entails prescribing progesterone, the hormone in a woman’s body that sustains pregnancy, to counter the first of the two abortion drugs.
The Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) is a network of around 1,000 medical providers and pregnancy help organizations managed by Heartbeat International that facilitate APR, and which recently celebrated the milestone of 3,000 lives saved thanks the reversal protocol.
“No woman should ever feel so alone, coerced, or so hopeless that she feels abortion is her only choice,” said Trudden. “We know the power that women have inside them and we are privileged to help them unlock that strength within. Because every woman deserves love and compassion when facing an unexpected pregnancy.”
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Editor's note: For more information on the SFLA Standing With You initiative, click HERE. Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News.
